This invention relates to the fields of computer systems and telephone communications. More particularly, a method is provided for establishing a communication connection between two parties without either party knowing or learning the other's private address.
Traditionally, when a caller wishes to establish a telephone connection with another party, he or she dials a telephone number associated with that party. However, the attempted call may fail for several reasons. For example, the called party may be busy or otherwise not available for taking a call, the caller may dial the wrong number, the called party may not be at the number that was dialed, etc.
When a call is placed but not answered, the caller may leave a voice mail message and thereby initiate a round of “telephone tag” as each party attempts to make contact with the other. Or, the voice mail message may be left on a telephone number that the called party checks only infrequently, thus delaying notification of the called party that a call is desired. In many cases, the parties will attempt to contact each other, and may leave a message, several times.
Thus, two inherent problems may be faced when attempting to complete a telephone call—“when” and “where” to reach the other party. More specifically, a caller may have little or no idea of the best time to try to reach his or her desired party, and may not know which telephone number (e.g., office, residence, mobile) provides the best chance of reaching that party at any given time. As a result, the caller may have to dial several numbers and/or leave several voice mail messages before connecting with the desired party.
Some attempts have been made to alleviate the problems of “when” or “where” to reach a party. Voice mail can be left for the called party, for example, and may be translated or transcribed into text or other form for delivery via electronic mail or other means. In addition, “follow me services” attempt to reach a called party at several numbers, perhaps simultaneously, in response to a call. They may try to connect to a called party at one or more telephone numbers, but because they are uninformed as to the called party's availability, they may be unsuccessful at reaching him or her. Existing solutions thus generally address only “when” or “where” to reach a party, but not both.
As another problem, a caller attempting to reach a party may have an identifier of that party, such as an electronic mail address or instant message user name, but not the party's telephone number. Traditional operator services cannot help the caller in this situation because the information possessed by the caller is not enough to enable the operator to locate a telephone number associated with the party. Without the party's telephone number, the caller cannot establish a telephone connection with the party.
In addition, when a caller directs a telephone call to a called party, the called party traditionally receives little, if any, information regarding the caller. The “caller id” service may provide a telephone number or name of a caller, but only if the called party subscribes to this service and the caller does not block the information. In addition, the name provided in a caller id field may not be the name of the actual caller.
The foregoing problems are compounded when the personal mobility of the called party is considered. Personal mobility is defined as the ability to allow a person to be accessible under the same identity irrespective of what network they are using and what device they are using to access that network. A personal mobility contact address meets this need such that a person can always be contacted regardless of his location. With personal mobility, it is necessary to allow such a personal mobility contact address to be established and published in a public directory while still maintaining the privacy of the person's underlying private contact address.
The previous approaches have recognized that privacy in communication is typically viewed as keeping the caller's identity private. Accordingly, the current solution is typically to maintain unlisted numbers in the world of telephony. The present inventors, however, have recognized that privacy is a negotiated agreement between the calling and called parties. That is, does the called party trust the calling party sufficiently to allow them to contact the called party.
Various approaches have been taken in regards to privacy. Wolff et al. WO94/22259, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein, discloses call screening based on caller id. However, there is no attempt to determine if the caller id can be trusted.
Henderson U.S. Pat. No. 7,286,658, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein, does not address privacy but instead is about triggering the display of data on a personal device (e.g., pager, personal digital assistant) based on it receiving a signal via a wireless communications device.
Brown et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication 2003/0112945, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein, discloses a method whereby a telephone connection may be established between two parties without knowing the phone number of either party. A telephone system receives a personal identifier (e.g., telephone number, name) from the calling party which is used to inform the party to be called, who may then decide to take the call or take some other action. There is no attempt to verify the authenticity of the personal identifier of the calling party.
Crandell et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication 2007/0248220, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein, discloses a method in which trusted identity between callers is established by providing system codes between the parties, which are used in combination with the calling party identifier to provide assurance of their identity. The difficulty with this kind of system is the required distribution of system codes between the parties and the consequent management of them.
Shevmov et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication 2007/0248230, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein, discloses a method in which private identifiers are determined and used only by a wireless network so as to prevent unauthorized use of the network.
Bessler et al., “A Privacy Enhanced Service Architecture for Mobile Users”, Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops (2005), the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein, discloses a service which allows individuals to access services without revealing their identity so as to ensure anonymity and privacy of individuals to network and services operators.